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oh boy, off the top of my head, I'd say abstinence - in an atheist context - is completely ridiculous, however if your paper is dealing with religious abstinence, then that's another thing. In a historical religious context, it is my opinion that the main unstated objective of abstinence was control over women, in order to keep women from having choices, to get them married to subpar men who beat them and give them no pleasure in life.

STDs (discounting AIDS) were never the social/medical problem the health industry made them out to be. I think the 80s STD hysteria was akin to terrorism hysteria today, way less dangerous than popularised. Statistics from this week (CBC radio) reveal that people shying away from flying because of a fear of air terrorism have actually increased their risk of death because road travel is that much more deadly than air travel, even with terrorism. Even accounting for the health risks, I think that the benefits of a free society that engage freely in sex far outweigh the health consequences. I'd rather a small population of happily fornicating humans than a huge population of monks!

I've always had a saying: People busy in bed will have less time to enslave others and destroy the planet and follow their greedy little instincts! Give me a freaky Jamaican over an ambitious North American any day. Sex is so much more fulfilling than career and wealth! Look at all the lonely people in our society, all the people who don't have physical contact on a daily basis, they become Columbine killers... Even people in relationships sometimes pursue their previous pattern of non-contact, which ends up ruining their marriage...

You're right: sex is more fulfilling than career and wealth (though I could sure do with a bit of wealth right about now). No wonder I was never that ambitious in career: I'm always more interested in the latest person I have a crush on. Gee, which is more interesting--slaving away for a corporation, or getting it on?!

As far as STD hysteria, do you mean that STDs are not the usual cited 1-in-4 or whatever it is, or do you mean that the STDs that are most common are not that big a deal? It is true that many STDs are curable. The most common one (herpes) isn't curable, but it also isn't really all that harmful. Apparently the worst thing about it is that people won't want to have sex with you b/c they're afraid of getting it and having other people not want to have sex with them b/c those people are afraid of getting it and having other people not want to have sex with them. With this, most people are hysterical, and actually the medical establishment just says it's very common.

Contact your local Planned Parenthood. They have an education department that would probably be more than happy to provide you with all the literature you need regarding safe sex and STIs (sexually transmitted infections - they're not all diseases).

I am interested in how abstinence in a religious settings affects STD rates, I've heard that they are generally higher as people aren't taught about sexual health. What I want to know is about general stats and studies done on this. In general compared to people taught sex ed what are the rates of STDs.